According to Lincolnshire Police tweets, Cambridgeshire Police Dog Unit and a Lincs ARV (Armed Response Vehicle) attended the scene. No prizes for guessing the state of those cretins underwear when faced with four stones of psychopathic police dog and a couple of armed coppers!!!

My mate at work showed me a bit about this in the paper a few days ago. The mother of one of the boys said 'He's already been punished, I've confiscated his phone and X Box and he's been grounded'. As if that makes it all ok.

Once charged they will appear before a Youth Court, As more than £10,000 worth of damage has been done then the case has to be heard at Crown Court.

None of us can be 'Judge, Jury, Executioner' in this issue and nor should we allow that happen in public forum, even in the Facebook Groups that I admin we have taken a tough line on this. So I will not predict what punishments they will receive, but Crown Courts are not noted for leniency.

Buelligan wrote:The mother of one of the boys said 'He's already been punished, I've confiscated his phone and X Box and he's been grounded'. As if that makes it all ok.

Assuming they are still minors, she may be in for a rude awakening to her parental responsibilities, when it gets to the matter of costs and damages. Even if the crown courts don't award damages, following conviction any insurers involved will seek recompense through the civil courts.

Good luck with that. You'll probably find he has no assets. A recovery order may be a £1 a month after all his education, domestic and travelling expense have been taken in to account. I wouldn't hold your breath for reparative justice.

I'm not so sure about that. I've worked in the prison service for over ten years and view a system of gangs and cultures that learn from one another. Imho, better to dispense justice swift and briefly.

Interestingly, I once had a long chat with a con who described his life of crime. He came from a rough part of town, but was clear this was not to blame. Instead he explained to me that every time he stole a car, robbed a house, he knew it was wrong and there was no justification for it. He did it because it was easy. Easier to steal a car and scrap it for parts than to stay in and study or hold down a job with all the discipline that goes with it.

dubdee1000 wrote:I'm not so sure about that. I've worked in the prison service for over ten years and view a system of gangs and cultures that learn from one another. Imho, better to dispense justice swift and briefly.

Interestingly, I once had a long chat with a con who described his life of crime. He came from a rough part of town, but was clear this was not to blame. Instead he explained to me that every time he stole a car, robbed a house, he knew it was wrong and there was no justification for it. He did it because it was easy. Easier to steal a car and scrap it for parts than to stay in and study or hold down a job with all the discipline that goes with it.

Interesting comments, you're obviously someone with a better insight to this than many. But in your story, was that because the punishment each time wasn't severe enough, or simply because he didn't get caught very often?

Oh, he got caught plenty of times but because his crimes were what you might call "minor", he did a couple of months and was out again.

What these guys wish to avoid are a-cat prisons because these are where the hard nuts and radicals live. Keep your crimes to a lower level and you'll spend your time in and out of d-cat prisons, often called open prisons. It's the boredom that does for them in these. They'll usually behave well and keep under the radar because any aggro and they're off to an a-cat. Prisoners may be many things, but they're seldom stupid. So it's just a matter of seeing out your time until release when you can get your kicks again.

A-cat prisoners are altogether something different and live in a different world to you and I. They will frequently try and justify their crimes such as murder, usually that the victim had it coming to them because they were messing around with their sister etc. They usually murder each other, so keep our of their world and you should be ok.

I think d-cat prisons need to be less soft and with shorter sentances. I'm not advocating beating and flogging, but certainly doing harder tasks, either physically or mentally (we once put a bent copper to task by having him clean the toilets with a toothbrush), is better than the boredom of just hanging around. It's a lot cheaper too.